Dear Twitter,
You say that what you are is “a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.”
You are so much more than that, my dear.
You are so much more than about sharing facts and figures, feelings and fascinations.
More than discovering the latest depressingly beautiful picture of the latest oil spill disaster, more than knowing which drunk celebrity went off on a photographer last night, more than learning what your customers think about your inability to test the antenna on your latest super phone.
No, honey, what you are is more profound and fundamental than you may ever know.
Twitter, what you do is reduce the transaction costs of people connecting with the mates of their souls.
And I don’t just mean the various levels of romance (even though yes, that can be had. ahem. cough cough.), and I don’t mean the one-soulmate-for-forever-for-each-of-us fantasy.
I mean connecting with those people who, for some reason, we need at this particular moment.
To help us with a problem. To show us where we are blind. To invite us to grow into the next level our our existence on their earth.
Whether what they provide is a better cup of coffee or a less expensive power cord for our iPhone or the step by step process to edit an iMovie video … or the core truth of our existence or our purpose here on this earth.
All of those connections, from the simple to the profound, are important.
Valuable. Expensive (in time and money) to find anywhere else.
(btw, when I say “people” – I mean individuals, friends, lovers. I mean coaches, consultants, mentors. I mean people who are part of business, agencies, corporations. However they are titled, whatever they are part of, twitter (and business, and life) is simply about people connecting with people.)
Yes, I’ve made money from my connections on twitter.
About 1/2 of my sales in the last 12 months, and a huge percentage of my business relationships – all come through twitter. Also had some fun stuff, like I got a fancypants person at AT&T to call when I threw a fit about my DSL, and got a free plane ticket to Toronto from Klout/Virgin America.
But that’s not the most important thing that happened for me.
I met or made the powerful connection with the most important people in my life via twitter.
These people are my best friends on this earth, who are the ones who support me when things get bad, who celebrate when things are fantastic, who love me for who I really am. Yes, we took it beyond you (skype, texting, email, facebook, telephone, face-to-face) to deepen the relationships.
But twitter is where the magical resonance first happened.
So thank you twitter, you changed my life.
Love,
@ElizabethPW
P.S. I wish you would let me pay you money, especially if that would mean I would get analytics and more uptime reliability. #justsayin
I'm Elizabeth Potts Weinstein, a writer, teacher, and coach.